Michigan desperately needed to beat top-seeded Indiana in the Big Ten tournament to stay alive for an at-large bid on Selection Sunday, and they did just that thanks to this dramatic buzzer-beating three just before time expired from Kameron Chatman.
Chatman is only a 27 percent three-point shooter and had made just seven triples all year before hitting that game-winning shot, which makes it that much more impressive. With the win, the eight seed Michigan moves on to the Big Ten semifinals where they will play the winner of the four seed Purdue and 12 seed Illinois.
While the win doesn’t guarantee that Michigan will be in the field if they fail to win the Big Ten tournament, it certainly helps. As of Friday morning, John Beilein’s Wolverines were the sixth team out according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Ahead of them were teams like Florida who lost Friday to Texas A&M, and teams who already are done in the regular season like Syracuse and Valparaiso. Connecticut and Tulsa, who were also ahead of them, also play on Friday and could potentially get knocked out of the AAC tournament which would catapult Big Blue even higher up.
As for Indiana, while they will still have their regular season Big Ten championship to fall back on, getting knocked out in the quarterfinals as the top seed doesn’t bode particularly well for the Hoosiers heading into the NCAA Tournament next week.
March has officially arrived, folks.
